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Episode 1385: Ask Not What WAR Can Do For You
Date June 5, 2019 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the paucity of pitchers selected at the top of the draft, the Hall of Famers Mike Trout passed in career WAR in May, Trout’s quietly impressive season, whether WAR has helped Trout’s reputation more than Trout has helped WAR’s, the surprising names at the top of the 2019 WAR leaderboard for pitchers, and Andrew McCutchen’s season-ending ACL injury, then answer listener emails about baseball-inspired national holidays, what would happen if Max Scherzer insisted on batting cleanup, and the most inconsequential topics discussed on baseball broadcasts, plus an update on the pulling-pitchers-mid-plate-appearance approach and a Stat Blast on the lack of good hitters over 30 and whether old players are getting worse or young players are just getting better. Topics * Which baseball days should be national holidays? * The joys of day baseball * Impact on player values if they had to hit cleanup * Age of top 20 players by WAR * Are older players worse? * Inconsequential broadcast topics * What do you want more of in baseball broadcasts? Intro John Lennon, "Cleanup Time" Outro The Cardigans, "War" Banter * Recent skew in position players being taken at top of the draft * This month Mike Trout passed Hall of Famers Roberto Alomar, Ernie Banks, and Fred Clark in WAR. * Mike Trout's quietly impressive season * Players whose reputation is helped or hurt by WAR * 2019 WAR surprises * Episode 1382 follow-up: Mid count pitching changes Email Questions * Ethan: "While watching the Arkansas-Central Connecticut St. opening game of the NCAA regional today, the announcer said, “today should be a national holiday” on account of the tournament’s 32-game opening day. You hear this every year during March Madness and on Opening Day, but while the sentiment is familiar, this specific claim is certainly bold. If you were to become sports czar, how many days of baseball would you allot a national holiday to? Would this make your top 30?" * Chaim: "So this question is inspired by a rumor of a clause that is in Marcell Ozuna’s contract. Apparently he has a clause in his contract that mandates him to only hit clean up.This got me thinking, how much value would it knock off, say, Max Scherzer if he demanded to hit clean up?" * Henry: "Something that I have consistently noticed since the introduction of the mound-visit limit is radio and TV broadcasters paying lots of attention to how many mound visits each team has remaining. My unverifiable belief is that this barely ever matters — six mound visits is a lot! — but that never seems to stop broadcasters from telling me exactly how many visits a team has remaining. Lord knows broadcasters need to fill dead air however they can, but this is always very silly to me. Is this the most inconsequential thing that listeners/viewers are always made aware of? Most other stats that are discussed or displayed on the scoreboard are either important or interesting/descriptively powerful. Even the number of challenges remaining (which broadcasters also love discussing and which I also find laughable) at least plausibly could impact a game in dramatic fashion. Can any other stat challenge mound visits remaining when it comes to the ratio of time spent talking about it to relevance?" Stat Blast * Sam looks at the changing age trends of the top 20 players by WAR each season. * Michael Brantley, aged 32, is the only player in the top 20 by WAR this season who is 30 or over. * The average age of the top 20 players by WAR this season is 26.5. Notes * This year only 10 of the 32 first round draft picks were pitchers. The top six picks were all position players. * If Max Scherzer hit cleanup there would only be a minor change, from 4.35 to 4.284, in the number of projected runs to be scored each game. * In 2018 there were only 33 games were a team used all their mound visits. * Sam and Ben are interested in having a clock on TV broadcasts of how longer a pitcher has been warming up in the bullpen. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1385: Ask Not What WAR Can Do For You * 2019 MLB First Round Draft Results * There's (Almost) No Such Things As a Top Pitching Prospect by Ben Lindbergh * Mike Trout tracker, May edition by Sam Miller * Cole Hamels, and The Win's Long Con by Meg Rowley * Older Hitters Are Declining, But It's Not Because They Can't Stand The Heat by Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur * MLB Games Are Slow Again, And It's Helping Older Hitters by Rob Arthur Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes